No cognitive decline for women with migraines: study

No cognitive decline for women with migraines: study

WASHINGTON: Women suffering from migraines are more likely to experience changes to their brain tissue, though these do not appear to cause long-term damage to their mental condition, a study said Tuesday.
The study of 286 women and men, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that women with migraines were more likely to have brain changes that appeared as bright spots on magnetic resonance imaging.
"We've known for a while that women with migraine tend to have these brain changes as seen on MRI," said Linda Porter, pain health science policy adviser in the Office of the Director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which helped fund the study.
Previous studies have found a link between the bright spots known as hypersensitivities and risk factors for atherosclerotic disease, increased risk of stroke and cognitive decline.
"An important message from the study is that there seems no need for more aggressive treatment or prevention of attacks," said Mark Kruit, a principal investigator for the study who is also a neuroradiologist from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, which led the study.
The researchers were careful to stress that the brain changes that trigger the bright spots seen on MRI scans are unknown, and that the matter requires more research.
People with migraine-associated brain lesions did not demonstrate significant losses in cognitive abilities such as memory, concentration and attention compared to those without migraines, according to the study.
Unlike women, men with migraines had no greater incidence of brain changes than other men without migraines of the same age.

Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar

Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar 

LONDON: A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.
The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.
On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.
"The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case)," the WHO said.
The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.
Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.
Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.
Britain's Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.
Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
"Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up," it said.
It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked - they were from the same family, living in the same household.
"Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered," the WHO's statement said.
Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.
The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as "London1_novel CoV 2012".
The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.
"Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases," it said. (Reuters)

Knee replacement linked to weight gain: study

Knee replacement linked to weight gain: study 

NEW YORK: Being overweight is known to increase the risk of needing a knee replacement, but a new study finds that knee replacement surgery may also raise a person's risk of gaining weight, according to a US study.
Researchers, whose findings appeared in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, analyzed the medical records of nearly 1,000 knee-replacement surgery patients, and found that 30 percent of them gained five percent or more of their body weight in the five years following surgery.
One possible explanation for the counter-intuitive results, experts said, is that if people have spent years adapting to knee pain by taking it easy, they don't automatically change their habits when the pain is reduced.
"Patients who undergo knee arthroplasty are at increased risk of clinically important weight gain following surgery," wrote study leader Daniel Riddle, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
"Future research should develop weight loss/maintenance interventions particularly for younger patients who have lost a substantial amount of weight prior to surgery, as they are most at risk for substantial post surgical weight gain."
Riddle's group used a patient registry from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, which collected information on 917 knee replacement patients before and after their procedures.
The researchers found that five years after surgery, 30 percent of patients had gained at least five percent of their weight at the time of the surgery - at least 5 kg or more on a 100-kg person, for example.
In contrast, fewer than 20 percent of those in a comparison group of similar people who had not had surgery gained equivalent amounts of weight in the same period.
"After knee replacement we get them stronger and moving better, but they don't seem to take advantage of the functional gains," said Joseph Zeni, a physical therapy professor at the University of Delaware, who was not part of the study.
"I think that has to do with the fact that we don't address the behavioral modifications that have happened during the course of arthritis before the surgery."
Riddle's team explained that this degree of weight gain can lead to "meaningful effects on cardiovascular and diabetes related risk as well as pain and function."
Part of the explanation for the weight gain could be the age at which patients get surgery. People in their 50s and 60s tend to gain weight anyway. Still, in light of the lower rates of weight gain in the comparison group, which was also middle aged and older, Riddle said something else may also be at work.
Indeed, the team found that patients who had lost weight before their surgery were slightly more likely to gain weight afterwards - perhaps because when people lose weight in anticipation of an event, such as surgery, they are more likely to put it back on after they're achieved the goal.
Zeni said that to help people stave off weight gain after surgery, health care providers need to address the sedentary lifestyle people often adopt to accommodate their arthritis.

 

Vitamin D deficiency causes bone diseases

Vitamin D deficiency causes bone diseases 

ISLAMABAD: Dr Sayed Mehfooz Alam, consultant Rheumatologist said that 40 per cent people across the world suffer from bone diseases because of vitamin D deficiency.
He said that less physical activity, junk food and a busy lifestyle are the main reasons for this disease.
He said in daily routine use of computer, video games and TV has increased a lot which ends up with less physical activity causing arthritis (joints' pains).
Talking about preventive measures relating to arthritis, he suggested a balanced diet and reduction in weight.
Dr Mehfooz said that wrong posture while sitting and during sleep also promote the problems of neck and backache.
Excessive use of red meat, fish, nuts, spinach and tomato increases uric acid in human body which causes joint swelling, he added.
He recommended that one should enhance the use of dairy products like egg, milk and yogurt in their normal diet and must control cholesterol level for healthy life.

 

US doctors defeat leukemia with modified HIV

US doctors defeat leukemia with modified HIV

 

NEW YORK: US doctors say they have saved a seven-year-old girl who was close to dying from leukemia by pioneering the use of an unlikely ally: a modified form of the HIV virus.
After fighting her disease with chemotherapy for almost two years and suffering two relapses, the young girl "faced grim prospects," doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said.
So in February this year they agreed to take her on in an experimental program that fought fire with fire.
Helped by a genetically altered HIV virus -- stripped of its devastating properties that cause AIDS -- doctors turned the girl's own immune cells into a superior force able to rout the "aggressive" leukemia.
Emily Whitehead was the first child and is one of only a handful of people in total to be given what's officially known as CTL019 therapy. The hospital stressed this could not yet be called "a magic bullet."
However in her case at least the success was dramatic.
First, millions of the girl's natural immune system cells were removed. Then the modified HIV virus was used to carry in a new gene that would boost the immune cells and help them spot, then attack cancer cells that had previously been able to sneak in "under the radar," the hospital said on its website.
Finally the rebooted immune cells were sent back in to do their work.
"The researchers have created a guided missile that locks in on and kills B cells, thereby attacking B-cell leukemia," the hospital said.
Pediatric oncologist Stephan Grupp, who cared for the girl, explained Tuesday that there was never any danger of AIDS during the process.
"The way we get the new gene into the T cells (immune cells) is by using a virus. This virus was developed from the HIV virus, however all of the parts of the HIV virus that can cause disease are removed," he said in an email.
"It is impossible to catch HIV or any other infection. What's left is the property of the HIV virus that allows it to put new genes into cells."
During the treatment, Emily became very ill and went into the intensive care unit, underlining how risky the procedure can be. However, drugs that partly block the immune reaction were administered, without interfering with the anti-leukemia action, and she recovered, the hospital said.
The result was "complete" and best of all, the doctors say, the boosted immune shield continues "to remain in the patient's body to protect against a recurrence of the cancer."
"She has no leukemia in her body for any test that we can do -- even the most sensitive tests," Grupp told ABC television. "We need to see that the remission goes on for a couple of years before we think about whether she is cured or not. It is too soon to say."
Emily's parents Kari and Tom told the hospital that the success of the operation has changed their world. Instead of chemotherapy that made the girl lose all her hair, she is now back in school, walking her dog Lucy and playing soccer. "T cell therapy was really the only option left for Emily," Tom said.
Grupp said on the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia website that cell therapies might eventually replace the more costly, painful bone marrow transplant treatment, a standard last-ditch defense against cancer.
"I've been meeting with families to discuss bone marrow transplant for 20 years," he said.
"In almost every meeting, I say that bone marrow transplant is very hard and that if we had an alternative for children at that point in treatment, I would be delighted to put myself out of business. And for the first time, we're seeing how that might actually happen." (AFP)

 

Men more likely to die of cancer

Not only are men more likely than women to be diagnosed with cancer, men who get it have a higher chance of dying from the disease, according to a US study.
In an analysis of cases of all but sex-specific cancers such as prostate and ovarian cancer, for example, men were more likely than women to die in each of the past ten years, said researchers, whose findings appeared in The Journal of Urology.
That translates to an extra 24,130 men dying of cancer in 2012 because of their gender.
"This gap needs to be closed," said Shahrokh Shariat from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, who worked on the study. "It's not about showing that men are only doing worse and, 'poor men.' It's about closing gender differences and improving health care."
Using US cancer registry data from 2003 through 2012, Shariat and his colleagues found the ratio of deaths to cancer diagnoses decreased 10 percent over the past decade - but was consistently higher among men than women.
Overall, men with any type of cancer were six percent more likely to die of their disease than women with cancer. When men and women with the same type of cancer were compared, that rose to more than 12 percent.
In 2012, Shariat's team calculated that about 575,130 men and 457,240 women would be diagnosed with a non-sex specific cancer. Also this year, an estimated 243,620 men will die of cancer - one death for every 2.36 new diagnoses, compared to 182,670 women dying, or one for each 2.5 new diagnoses.
"We found that from the 10 most common cancers in males and females... men present at a higher stage than females, and adjusted for the incidence, are more likely to die from the cancer," Shariat told.
"If you take an average of the 10 most common cancers, men are more likely to die in seven out of the ten," he added. In contrast, women are more likely to die only from bladder cancer.
The new study can't show what's behind the differences in cancer deaths, but possible theories include men's higher rates of smoking and drinking combined with less frequent doctor's visits - which cause men's cancers to be diagnosed in later, more advanced stages.
Sex hormones may also contribute to differences in men's and women's immune systems, metabolism and general susceptibility to cancer, according to Yang Yang, a sociologist and cancer researcher from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who studies health disparities but wasn't part of the study.
She said the new findings are consistent with work suggesting a higher risk of death for men from many causes, not just cancer.
But a full understanding of the origins and mechanisms in sex differences in cancer, as well as overall mortality, has remained elusive," Yang told.
Shariat said men should be particularly proactive about their health care.
"That means going to screening programs, seeing a general practitioner or primary care provider on a regular basis and as soon as symptoms arise that are new, mentioning that to their primary care physicians," he added.

Treat nutrition and cancer research cautiously

NEW YORK: Studies suggesting that everything from cinnamon to lobster either raises or lowers a person's risk of cancer may sometimes be a bunch of baloney, a new report suggests.
Researchers created a list of 50 random food items, then found studies from the last 35 years that claimed risks or benefits for the majority them. But most of the claims were based on weak evidence.
"We have seen a very large number of studies, just too many studies, suggesting that they had identified associations with specific food ingredients with cancer risk," said Dr. John Ioannidis from the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California, who worked on the analysis.
"People get scared or they think that they should change their lives and make big decisions, and then things get refuted very quickly," he told Reuters Health.
That back-and-forth can distract the public from associations that do have solid evidence behind them, such as the increased cancer risk tied to smoking or the beneficial effects of fruits and vegetables, he said.
"There's very strong evidence, and pretty strong expectation, that some nutrients in some foods would be related to cancer risk - either protecting or increasing the risk - but it's very hard to believe that almost anything would be associated with cancer," Ioannidis added.
For their study, he and Dr. Jonathan Schoenfeld from Harvard Medical School in Boston selected the first 50 ingredients they found in randomly-chosen cookbook recipes.
That list included meats and fish, vegetables, dairy products, bread and spices.
The researchers then ran each ingredient through a medical journal database search to see if there were any studies tying how much of it people consumed to their risk for some type of cancer.
For 40 out of the 50 ingredients - including veal, celery, cheese and mustard - there were a total of 264 such studies. Of those, 103 suggested the ingredient was tied to an increased risk of cancer, and 88 to a decreased risk.
Studies on some ingredients, such as onions, carrots and tea, almost all showed a decreased cancer risk, and for others, like bacon and sugar, most or all findings showed a higher risk. But for many foods, study results were all over the map.
The average effect shown in each study was about a doubling of cancer risk or a halving of risk, depending on which direction the association went for a particular ingredient in a particular report. However, the data backing those claims was usually unconvincing, Schoenfeld and Ioannidis said.
In larger reviews that included multiple studies, the links between each particular food item and cancer risk were typically smaller or nonexistent, according to the pair's findings, which are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
"You have all these individual studies, and people are not getting together and trying to figure out what is going on in terms of the entire picture," said Teresa Fung, a professor of nutrition at Simmons College in Boston.
"It's a system problem. It's also how science is reported," Fung, who also has an adjunct appointment at the Harvard School of Public Health, told Reuters Health.
"I agree with their point that there's room for improvement in the way nutrition and cancer is researched and reported to the public," said Marjorie McCullough, strategic director of nutritional epidemiology at the American Cancer Society.
"These individual results often get taken out of context," said McCullough, who like Fung wasn't involved in the new analysis.
"I would caution people not to over-interpret individual studies and look to guidelines that have been published" based on more comprehensive reviews, she added.
Of course, none of this means nutrition isn't important for cancer risk and general health. McCullough told Reuters Health the evidence is building that extra weight plays a role in many cancers, and maintaining a healthy body weight is an important part of ACS's guidelines.
But when it comes to diet itself, it may be more important to focus on larger patterns, rather than specific foods, she added.
"Sometimes we need to take a step back and look at things from a different perspective," Fung said. (Reuters)

Almost 10pc of population in Pakistan is diabetic

KARACHI: Ten percent of population in Pakistan is diabetic in Pakistan and the prevalence is rising due to unhealthy lifestyle and poor healthcare facilities in the country, said noted experts here on Monday.
Prof Muhammad Zaman Shaikh, Director of National Institute of Diabetes & Endocrinology, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and Prof Najam Ul Hassan of Aga Khan University Hospital were addressing a press conference here at Karachi Press Club.
They said constant tension and unhealthy lifestyle have increased the risk of diabetes among the people. They stressed the importance of awareness among the masses to save them from chronic disease like diabetes.
They announced that Pakistan Endocrine Society is organizing its 10th Annual Symposium on 8th & 9th December 2012 in Karachi. Theme of symposium will be “Promoting Hormone Health”.
The reason for this selection of the theme is to promote the understating of endocrine diseases, its diagnosis, management and available treatment options in our local and national setup of Pakistan Prof Zaman Shaikh said that 10 percent of population is facing diabetes in our country.
He said constant tension and unhealthy lifestyle increased the risk of diabetes among the people. He stressed the importance of awareness among the masses to save them from chronic disease like diabetes.
Prof Najam ul Hassan said that disorders of hormones is the main causes of obesity, menstrual disturbances, short stature and diabetes among the peoples. He further said disorders of hormones only increased or control through injection.
Dr Qamar Masood said the regular consumption of fast food items, change in lifestyle and industrialization has increased the risks of this disease. He urged the masses to adopt simple lifestyle, 35 -minute daily exercise and use of fruits and vegetables in daily diet which would save them from diseases.
He further said would be three pre-symposium workshops on the topic of thyroid nodules, evaluation of short stature & diabetic foot would also be held. The inauguration ceremony will be on 8th December.
Dr Muhammad Ahmed of Saudi Arabia will deliver keynotes on “Challenges in the Management of Thyroid Cancer” and Dr Hamed Farooqi of Dubai United Arab Emirates (UAE) will also be another guest speaker.
There will be satellite symposium on the topic of “Translating Diabetes Care from Guidelines to Practice”.
Other national and international endocrinologists will also deliver their lectures on different topics: Metabolic Bone Disease in Children, Obesity, Insulin therapy & menstrual disturbances along with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. (PPI)

ٹما ٹر کا استعما ل ہائی بلڈ پر یشر اورکو لیسٹرو ل سے محفو ظ رکھتا ہے ،تحقیق

ٹما ٹر کا استعما ل ہائی بلڈ پر یشر اورکو لیسٹرو ل سے محفو ظ رکھتا
ہے ،تحقیق

کینبرا …ایک حا لیہ طبّی تحقیق میں بتا یا گیا ہے کہ سر خ ٹما ٹرو ں کا استعمال بلند فشا ر ِ خو ن اور خو ن میں کو لیسٹرو ل کی سطح کو کم کر نے میں مددگا ر ثا بت ہوتاہے ۔ آسٹر یلیا میں کی جا نے والی اس تحقیق کے مطا بق ٹماٹروں میں پا ئے جا نے والے جزو Lycopene کی روزانہ پچیس ملی گر ام مقدار خون میں چکنا ئی کی سطح کو دس فیصد تک کم کرسکتی ہے۔ ماہرین کا یہ بھی کہناہے کہ ٹماٹر کو پکا کر کھا نا یا اس کا پیسٹ استعما ل کر نا کچے ٹما ٹر کھانے سے زیا دہ فا ئدہ مند ثا بت ہو تا ہے اور روزانہ پچا س گر ام ٹما ٹر کے پیسٹ کے استعمال سے دل کی بیماریوں سے بھی محفو ظ رہا جاسکتاہے ۔

 

Breath test points to colorectal cancer 

PARIS: An experimental breath test can diagnose colorectal cancer with an accuracy of over 75 percent, Italian researchers reported on Wednesday.
The electronic "nose" detects key molecules emitted by tumours, a technique that is also being used in pioneering diagnostics for lung and breast cancer.
A team led by Donato Altomare of the Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation at the University Aldo Mori in Bari collected exhaled breath from 37 patients with colorectal cancer and 41 healthy counterparts.
The breath was then analysed by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, which looked for a tiny chemical "fingerprint" for so-called volatile organic compounds linked to cancer.
Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in Europe, after lung cancer, and the third in the United States.
The human and economic cost of the disease is pushing the search for swift, cheap and simple diagnostic tools, compared to tests on stool DNA or faecal blood or a colonoscopy to detect dangerous polyps.
"The technique of breath sampling is very easy and non-invasive, although the method is still in the early phase of development," said Altomare. "Our study's findings provide further support for the value of breath testing as a screening tool."

Drug, alcohol abuse tied to early-life strokes

 

NEW YORK: Younger adults who suffered a stroke were often smokers or had abused drugs or alcohol, according to a US study that looked at over 1,000 patients.

Strokes are often thought of as a condition of the elderly, but researchers said long-term changes in the heart, arteries or and blood as a result of drug abuse or heavy drinking may put users at higher-than-average risk earlier in life.
"Substance abuse is common in young adults experiencing a stroke," wrote lead researcher Brett Kissela from the University of Cincinnati in the journal Stroke.
"Patients aged younger than 55 years who experience a stroke should be routinely screened and counseled regarding substance abuse."
It's also possible that some drugs, particularly cocaine and methamphetamines, may trigger a stroke more immediately, according to S. Andrew Josephson, a neurologist from the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied drug use and stroke but was not involved in the study.
"We know that even with vascular risk factors that are prevalent - smoking, high blood pressure... most people still don't have a stroke until they're older," he added.
"When a young person has a stroke, it is probably much more likely that the cause of their stroke is something other than traditional risk factors."
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke every year, and they are the most common cause of serious long-term disability. One study of 2007 data found that almost five percent of people who had a stroke that year were between ages 18 and 44.
The current study involved people from Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky who'd had a stroke before they hit 55.
The researchers reviewed medical charts for blood or urine test results of other records of substance abuse for close to 1,200 stroke patients.
In 2005, the most recent year covered, just over half of young adults who suffered a stroke were smokers at the time, and one in five used illicit drugs, including marijuana and cocaine. Thirteen percent of people had used drugs or alcohol within 24 hours of their stoke.
"The rate of substance abuse, particularly illicit drug abuse, is almost certainly an underestimate because toxicology screens were not obtained on all patients," said Steven Kittner, a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore who also wasn't part of the research.
The rate of smoking, drug use and alcohol abuse - defined as three or more drinks per day - seemed to increase among stroke patients between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s.
But Kissela and his team said they can't be sure whether more people were actually using those substances or doctors were just getting better at testing for and recording drug abuse.
The study also can't prove that patients' drug or alcohol use directly contributed to their strokes. It's possible, for example, that people who abuse drugs also see their doctors less often or engage in other risky behaviors that increase the chance of strokes, Josephson explained.
He added that the study emphasizes the need to learn and quickly recognizing the signs of strokes, even in young people, since some treatments can only be used in a short window of opportunity after the stroke.

Drugmakers step up search for hearing loss medicines

ZURICH/LONDON: When Swiss biotech firm Auris Medical wanted to recruit patients to test its experimental hearing loss drug, it decided to enlist partygoers deafened by firecrackers on New Year's Eve.


In the weeks leading up to December 31, 2005 it advertised in the subway and on radio stations in Munich and Berlin, urging victims of sudden firecracker-induced hearing loss to turn up at designated clinics for treatment on January 1.
"We had just one single day of enrolment, we didn't know how many people would show up," Thomas Meyer, managing director of Auris, told Reuters.
Luckily, his gamble paid off and the small private company is now one of the leaders in what has been an empty space for the pharmaceutical industry.
Auris managed to recruit enough people to show that its compound AM-111 posed no safety risk and has since successfully completed a mid-stage trial in acute sensorineural hearing loss, or sudden deafness, involving 210 patients.
While there is no guarantee that its drug, which is injected through the eardrum, will pass muster in final-stage tests, the progress by Auris and a clutch of rival biotech firms is making large pharmaceutical companies sit up and take notice.
There are currently no approved disease-modifying drugs for hearing loss, which affects nearly a third of people aged 65 to 74 and half of those over 75.
But the science is developing and investor interest is growing, piqued by the huge commercial success of recent new treatments for sight loss, such as Lucentis from Novartis and Roche and Eylea from Regeneron and Bayer.
British charity Action on Hearing Loss conservatively puts the potential Western market for new drugs at $4.6 billion a year - a figure that could grow quickly as ageing populations swell the ranks of those with hearing problems.
NEGLECTED FIELD
"It's one of the few areas that, as yet, hasn't really been tackled by the drugs industry," said Kate Bingham, managing partner at SV Life Sciences Advisers, a venture capital firm with investments in new drugs for both eyes and ears.
Bingham sits on the board of Autifony Therapeutics - a hearing loss firm spun out of GlaxoSmithKline in which the British drugmaker retains a stake.
Historically, hearing loss has received little attention from Big Pharma, given the lack of obvious targets for drug intervention, the difficulties of running clinical trials and a widespread belief that most deafness could not be reversed.
Now the big companies are getting involved, although the work is early-stage.
"A drug that is therapeutic and priced right could be quite a blockbuster. That's why they've put their toe in the water," said Jonathan Kil, chief medical officer at Seattle-based Sound Pharmaceuticals, which is enrolling young iPod users in a trial of an oral drug for noise-induced hearing loss.
U.S. giant Pfizer is arguably the most advanced of the big players, with a drug in initial Phase I clinical testing trial for age-related sensorineural hearing loss that looks to enhance the function of existing hair cells.
Some of its biggest rivals are laying bets, too. Last year French drugmaker Sanofi inked a two-year research deal with privately held Dutch biotech firm Audion Therapeutics to develop small molecule drugs to improve hearing.
In October, Roche joined forces with venture capital firm Versant Ventures and biotech Inception Sciences to find molecules targeting ear hair cell protection and regeneration in the cochlea, the spiral-shaped cavity in the inner ear.
Cross-town competitor Novartis, meanwhile, struck a 2010 deal potentially worth more than $213 million with U.S. biotech GenVec to develop gene-based treatments to replace hair cells in the ear that transmit sound.
"We're looking at restoration as our main line of work and we're interested in whether there are chemicals that might also play this role instead of having to introduce a gene," said Novartis research head Mark Fishman.
"This is an area that's a bit more futuristic and ultimately restoring the hair cells will be the cure."
EYES AND EARS
Unlike new eye drugs, which work by inhibiting an unwanted process, hearing drugs will need to restore damaged function - a more difficult proposition.
Experts say the first drugs will target niche areas, such as damage caused by loud noise or as a result of chemotherapy.
"Hearing loss is not just one condition. It's like cancer - there are lots of different types and there is work to be done to segment the market," said Ralph Holme, head of biomedical research at Action on Hearing Loss.
Heading the field for noise-induced hearing loss is South Illinois University, which has launched a late-stage trial with the U.S. military for an drug to increase protection for people exposed to very noisy environments like soldiers.
Canada's Adherex also has a late-stage trial to test a drug that may protect against hearing loss caused by platinum-based anti-cancer agents in children.
While protective treatments could become available within the next few years, regenerative approaches - such as injecting stem cells into the ear or chemically intervening to switch on genes that control cell growth - are much further off.
Despite recent promising tests in gerbils, the potential to replicate this in humans is still uncertain, said Pascal Senn, an ear specialist at the University of Berne.
"If something grows inside the ear, you must be sure that it doesn't grow excessively or form tumors. There are a lot of roadblocks that need to be overcome in this field. It's highly risky, but I think it's also the hottest area," he said.
One intriguing possibility for the future is the convergence of future drugs and devices. Hearing aid manufacturers have certainly not been deaf to the noises from the pharma sector.
Sonova, the world's largest maker of hearing aids, has invested in two start-up companies - one in the United States for drugs to protect hearing and another Swiss biotech working on a treatment for acute tinnitus.
It bought U.S. cochlear implant manufacturer Advanced Bionics in 2009 in a bid to increase its focus on the inner ear and understand how drug treatments could work with implants.
"It will be interesting whether the innovation will be driven by pharma companies moving in or whether the hearing aid companies will branch out," said Auris' Meyer. (Reuters)